Review: The Hangover Part II

It’s the first one. Again. But it’s in a totally different country. So that’s okay.

The Hangover Part II (four stars)

‘Why can’t you just get married in Vegas like you did last time,’ asks Phil (Bradley Cooper) at the beginning of The Hangover Part II. Clearly, he doesn’t know the rules to making a sequel to a hit comedy. And so, along with the rest of the wolf pack – groom-to-be Stu (Ed Helms) and ‘stay-at-home son’ Alan (Zach Galifianakis) – he finds himself in Bangkok in the follow-up to Todd Phillips’s original. Apart from the obligatory location change, however, the second Hangover replicates the first: our boys get mashed up, wake up in a strange place and have to find someone who has gone missing. Despite being torn apart by critics on its release, when taken on its own merits Hangover 2 is a lot of fun – there’s a genius James Taylor-esque musical interlude and a funky trip inside Alan’s head is simply hilarious. The movie probably could have done with that Mel Gibson cameo though.